Able to speed up your post-M&A operations with a go-to-market (GTM) post-merger integration guidelines?
Merging two firms is a fancy course of. Advertising performs an vital position in making it profitable. Any merger and acquisition (M&A) transaction modifications not solely how an organization operates, but additionally the way it presents itself to the market.
Mergers could be disruptive. It’s vital to obviously talk with prospects, staff, and companions to make sure enterprise continuity. Moreover, you’ll wish to make sure you’ve created a cohesive advertising plan that covers attribution, tech stacks, and pricing.
Regardless of uncertainty within the M&A markets over the previous couple of years, the consultants at PWC consider that we’re due for an M&A rebound. Meaning advertising leaders ought to keep able to cope with the complexities of an M&A integration course of.
This GTM post-merger integration guidelines is designed that will help you cope with the advertising elements of the transaction, from messaging to CRMs to buyer upsells. Let’s get into it.
GTM Put up-Merger Integration Guidelines
Listed here are seven suggestions for advertising a merger:
- Outline your new model messaging.
- Develop a unified advertising plan and timeline.
- Put together inner communications methods.
- Talk the information to your viewers.
- Compose updates to firm web sites and social media profiles.
- Consolidate GTM tech stacks.
- Establish cross-selling and upselling alternatives.
1. Outline your new model messaging
Oftentimes, buying a brand new firm will change the way in which your enterprise operates. You may create new product worth props, cater to new audiences, and even redefine the imaginative and prescient and mission of your new entity. It’s vital to carry collectively your management crew to outline what your organization needs to be, do and say.
We suggest conducting a messaging hierarchy train, which is able to aid you produce a model messaging framework that everybody can align on.
2. Develop a unified advertising plan and timeline
Now it’s time to marry your product imaginative and prescient along with your advertising technique. Work on growing a strategic advertising plan that includes one of the best practices and experience from each firms. This may occasionally contain merging groups, consolidating advertising tech stacks, and reallocating sources.
You’ll wish to assess your whole go-to-market technique. It’s possible you’ll wish to change the way you strategy sure lead technology techniques, similar to content material manufacturing or paid promoting. If each advertising departments have been utilizing completely different attribution fashions, you’ll need to mix or align these. General, you’re deciding how your new-look advertising division will function.
On this stage, you’ll additionally wish to set a date for asserting the information of the merger.
This ties into establishing an implementation timeline. Normally after an M&A, there’s a grace interval the place issues aren’t built-in and individuals are working of their establishment. From a advertising perspective, you don’t wish to break what’s working as you determine methods to combine. However typically, leaders permit this to go on for too lengthy, and the integration course of is stunted. Having a robust technique, plan, and timeline to execute is vital.
3. Put together inner communications methods
Staff needs to be notified straight of the merger or acquisition earlier than they discover out on their very own. Any M&A might carry modifications to their crew construction, payroll, advantages, and extra.
Take into account how you intend to share this information along with your groups. Use your newly-defined messaging hierarchy to attain consistency.
4. Talk the information to your viewers
The worst factor you are able to do in an acquisition is have your prospects really feel uncared for. Throughout any M&A, there’s going to be change however you don’t need your prospects to really feel that early on. Sharing the information with them as early and as humanly as doable is admittedly vital to set the tone that this M&A is not going to be disruptive for them
You must plan on some mixture of crafting a conventional press launch, pitching the story to media retailers, writing emails to prospects, and prepping social media content material.
It is a huge second! Ensure you’re repurposing and distributing the information throughout your entire channels to seize your viewers’s consideration. Additionally, attain out to current prospects a number of occasions concerning the information, as they could miss a one-time e-mail.
5. Compose updates to firm web sites and social media profiles
Be sure you put together updates of any public-facing firm profiles along with your new mission assertion, firm boilerplate, or different advertising necessities. This contains the big-name socials (LinkedIn, X, TikTok, and so on) in addition to profiles similar to Crunchbase or G2. However keep in mind: don’t replace something publicly till your launch date. I’ve seen errors from of us scheduling blogs prematurely, solely to have dates modified on the final minute.
Do the identical along with your firm web site(s). Are you merging the websites underneath one roof, or protecting them separate? Will you construct a touchdown web page that describes the advantages of the merger? Plan these actions properly prematurely, as creating or updating an internet site generally is a lengthy course of.
6. Consolidate GTM tech stacks
Throughout the M&A course of, GTM groups have to mix their tech stacks simply as a product crew would.
Understanding the efficiency of the brand new entity will come down to wash reporting, which is admittedly exhausting to do in case your GTM tech stack is totally completely different. Having a plan and an architect for this can be essential. Right here’s the place collaboration between your GTM and finance personnel is vital.
In case you’re opting to merge your GTM features, you’ll wish to consolidate buyer databases inside your CRM to make sure accuracy and consistency. This may occasionally contain some cross-platform knowledge migration (for instance: for those who use HubSpot however the acquired firm was operating on Salesforce). Whereas this will take some effort upfront, it would assist cut back duplicate knowledge entry in the long run.
7. Establish cross-selling and upselling alternatives
Analyze the product portfolios of the incoming firms to find alternatives for cross-selling, upselling, and bundling. Touchdown on the appropriate pricing and packaging methods can assist make sure that present service stays intact whereas offering alternatives to amass new prospects.
Navigating an M&A integration course of is often tough, however we hope this advertising post-merger integration guidelines helps simplify the GTM elements of your merge. In case you’re searching for assist with the product and finance sides of the M&A course of, you’ll want to obtain our Put up-M&A Integration Bundle for extra skilled insights.
